In the picture, Keifer is seen posing in a tank top and shorts with what looks like an AK47 (it's not) and a large snake. He captioned the photo by saying "this guy tried to get in on our songwriting session today. bad idea." And when he posted it, he had no idea the photo would cause the controversy that it did.

"It's not an AK47, for one, which is what everybody thought it was," Keifer tells Taste of Country's Billy Dukes.

"It was a pellet gun, lets get real here," Shawna says with a smile. Pellet gun or not, some folks were still rubbed the wrong way by the image of the dead snake. Keifer explains exactly why he did what he did, and some animal lovers may agree with his decision.

"I didn't know what kind of snake it was but anyway we were writin' down at the house in Alabama and I walked outside and the dogs were freaking out," he starts. "This six-foot-snake was kind of coiled up and snapped at our dog and so I mean, what else do you do? You have to kill the snake. You don't send it off to a resort."

"I did what I've always done and what I've known everyone else that lives in the country does: get rid of the snake," adds the TS2 singer.

The image caused quite the ruckus on their Instagram account.

"I had no idea there were so many passionate people about snakes, I actually had death threats from killing a snake -- for real," he shares. "I don't care who you are if there's a snake snapping at your dog, the snake's gotta go."